


I Find No Rest In Hell

by Pippin



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Real World, Character Death, Execution, Gangsters, Gen, Golden Age of Piracy, Highwaymen, Piracy, Reincarnation, Sort Of, Wild West, questionably historically accurate, the aurora is mentioned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:14:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28825797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pippin/pseuds/Pippin
Summary: But my spirit is not dead, so do not say farewellBut rather look for my return, for I find no rest in hell
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	I Find No Rest In Hell

**Author's Note:**

> Work title, chapter titles, and inspiration all come from the song Spirit of the Outlaw by the Jolly Rogers.

_The Caribbean Sea, 1687_

The wind sent Carmilla’s hair twirling into knots and in her face, but it was a small price to pay for the freedom that came from sitting atop the crow’s nest. She’d sent the person on watch down, and the nest was hers until watch change.

“Captain!”

…or until one of the crew needed her.

It was a simple matter to scramble back down from the nest, landing lightly on her feet to see what she was needed for.

“There’s a ship coming in from the west, flying a Spanish flag.” The young deckhand who was delivering the news was one of the newest crew members, a girl no more than sixteen. Carmilla remembered her mostly for her display in a sword fighting tournament she had watched in the last port, and had been delighted to learn that the girl’s morals were questionable, making her the perfect target for recruitment to the ship Aurora and its crew.

“Fly a neutral flag, summon the crew, prepare them to board the ship,” Carmilla ordered, already heading off to her cabin to collect her weaponry and, of course, the hat and coat that marked her as captain, made her look intimidating, as far as she was concerned.

By the time she returned to the deck, her crew was getting ready to board the approaching merchant ship. Once they were too close to pull away, Carmilla signaled to change the flag they were flying, switching from the banner of a neutral country to her own flag, a grinning female figure with blood dripping from one corner of the mouth. 

Moments later, her crew was dropping the boards that would allow them to travel between ships, and she was striding across to drop onto the deck. Boots clicking, she strode between the combatants, searching for the opposing captain.

He wasn’t hard to find, cowering away in his quarters. Carmilla raised his face to meet her eyes, tip of her rapier cutting into the soft flesh under his chin.

“Come along, captain,” she said in soft Spanish, spinning around him as he stood to put her dagger at his throat. “You’re going to tell your crew this is over. If they surrender, maybe we’ll even let them live.”

Crossing the deck was a treacherous affair, over blood and bodies and between blades and bullets. It was no matter, however, as Carmilla was fully willing to take any risk. If she wasn’t, she’d not have been a pirate to begin with. It wasn’t exactly a low-risk occupation.

Her crew only paid her half a mind as she stood by the wheel, but she didn’t care. It wasn’t their attention she was after. 

The crew they were fighting, however, were the ones she wished to distract, and she deftly sheathed her rapier with one hand, just to grab her pistol from where it hung at her waist, firing a single shot straight into the air. That was enough to bring attention to her and the man trembling in her grip.

Carmilla grinned cruelly, knowing full well the manic edge to her smile and the deadly glint in her eyes. Men had fallen to her feet and begged for her mercy at the barest hint of that smile, and now she deployed it in full.

“You are going to surrender and let myself and my crew do what we want, or else, well.” Carmilla pressed the edge of her dagger a little firmer into the captain’s throat. “I’m sure you can imagine what someone like me might do.”

“Listen to her,” the captain managed to say, voice shaking from the fear of the blade at his throat. “Better to surrender and live than die.”

“What a smart man,” Carmilla crooned, caressing his cheek. “Best you all learn from him.”

She winked at the scattered combatants, a reassurance for the people who were a part of her crew, especially as most of them didn’t speak Spanish, and a threat to the ones who weren’t. 

The enemy sailors dropped their weapons—most of them. One, however, dropped his sword readily enough, then grabbed a pistol from one of Carmilla’s own fallen men.

The shot went wide, but was still close enough to wing Carmilla’s shoulder. She swore under her breath and fixed the offending seaman with a dead-eyed stare. 

“I was willing to show mercy, to merely rob you and leave you to sail home in shame. But now you’ve taken advantage of my kindness, and I do _not_ appreciate the slight.”

It was a simple motion to cut the captain’s throat, and Carmilla ignored the fresh blood as it splattered across her skin. She was no stranger to blood on her skin, both her own and others’, and it didn’t bother. Besides, she knew that it gave her a manic and terrifying air, particularly as she laughed as she dropped the now lifeless body of the captain.

“Show them no mercy.”

She turned away from the bloodbath as her crew roared their acquiescence, choosing instead to venture into the bowels of the ship, searching for the precious cargo that the merchantmen had been willing to die for.

Spices. They were carrying _spices_. Carmilla grinned, baring teeth that were just a hint too sharp. They would be rich. This was better than even gold, for the cargo hold full of containers was fully worth twice its weight, and she was sure she could barter for more.

Carmilla perched on the edge of a crate to think a moment. She was loath to give up her own ship, _The Aurora_ , for she had earned that ship with her own blood and had proven the value of the investment ten times over. But, also, she had to be practical. With the captain and crew of this ship dead and dying on the deck above her head, it would be much simpler to merely commandeer this vessel and sail her for port.

Footsteps pounded down the stairs, and Carmilla looked up to see her second-in-command. He whistled as he looked around the hold. “We’ll be rich bastards,” he said.

Carmilla nodded, climbing to her feet. “Can you sail her into Port Royal, while I’m on _The Aurora_? Meeting you there, naturally.”

“Of course, Captain.”

* * *

It didn’t take long for Carmilla to bargain the sale of a Spanish ship full of spices with an overzealous member of the East India Company, and in no time at all she and her crew were stumbling through the streets of Port Royal, flush with money, bottles of Kill Devil Rum thrust into their hands by drunks stumbling by, supported by their crewmates or any of the ladies one could pay for company in a place like this.

Carmilla dismissed her crew with a sharp warning that if they weren’t back onboard the ship by the time they left in three days, they’d be left for dead, unemployed and with their gold fast running out. Then she headed to the nearest tavern to drink her troubles away.

The next morning, she woke to a pounding headache and a pretty girl curled against her. The positives outweighed the negatives, so she merely closed her eyes and went back to sleep.

The next few days were lost were lost in the haze of Port Royal. With one in every four buildings being a pleasure den of some sort or another, be that brothel or tavern or elsewise, it wasn’t hard to let the time blur and slip away just as did the coins in her pocket.

Nonetheless, Carmilla was back onboard _The Aurora_ in the time frame she had allotted to her crew—it would look bad elsewise. She couldn’t give them explicit directives about their time in port and not follow them herself. Her crew looked a little worse for the wear, and more than one of them had love marks bitten into their throats, but they were alive, only suffering from minor alcohol poisoning—Kill Devil Rum had gotten its name for a reason—and in one piece. That was never a guarantee when coming out of Port Royal.

“Can I talk to you, captain? In private?” The question came from one of the hands that had been onboard for a while, a tall woman named Occo whose bloodline could visibly be traced to the slave trade. She was ruthless with both blade and pistol, sworn to take revenge on the Spaniards who had enslaved and killed her family. 

“Of course,” Carmilla replied, leading Occo to her quarters and falling gracefully into her desk chair. “What is it?”

“A man we killed, a few months back. When we took in that haul of silver. He was the son of some lord back in Spain, and his father is seeking revenge.”

Carmilla arched an eyebrow. “We’re used to risk. We wouldn’t be pirates were we not willing to tempt fate.” She held a letter of marque from the English crown, but that was worth less than nothing to Spaniards who wished reprisal against those who stormed their ships, stole their goods, and killed their men.

Occo shook her head. “This isn’t just a usual threat. They’re out for your blood specifically. We’re being hunted.”

Carmilla shook her head and stood. “I need to address the crew.”

Not five minutes later, Carmilla was projecting her voice to reach over the sound of the wind and the slapping waves. “I will not ask any of you to go down for my sake. It is my head on the chopping block, and any of you should be given the chance to escape this fate. We’re two days out from Tortuga; should any of you wish to leave at that point you may, and with my best wishes. I will hold no grudge against any sailor who wishes to save their own skin.”

There was silence, and then one of the deck hands raised their voice. “We are loyal to you, Captain. Setting you adrift to face this threat alone is akin to mutiny, and I know that I, for one, do not wish to have that be my legacy on these seas.”

There was a murmuring of assent, and Carmilla turned her head into the wind so that any tears in her eyes would appear to be from the sting of salt and not the unwavering trust and support her crew was placing in her.

There was no outrunning this fight. Their destiny was fast approaching.

* * *

Carmilla had climbed back to the crow’s nest to take the midday watch, needing to be alone with her thoughts and the sea wind. There was no denying now that death was coming for her. Even if they stood as conquerors at this junction, it was unlikely that whatever lord she had pissed off was going to stop. An eye for an eye, as the saying went, although she was sure that he did not weigh her life in equal measure to the son she had killed.

From this vantage point, she could see the narrow strait they were fast approaching. And, more to the point, she could see the blockade there, three ships, all flying Spanish colors.

It was no time at all until she was back on the deck, calling for her crew and scrambling for arms. Many of them had been going about their own daily tasks, mending and tending and training and what-have-you, but it did not take them long to realize the danger they were in and spring to. It was too late to turn the ship; they would have to sail into the arms of death. 

And they would be ready for it.

* * *

Carmilla had to admit that while her crew was incredibly skilled, they were no match for three ships full of men from the Spanish navy. She didn’t have the time to consider this further, however, as she was currently standing with her back pressed to her own mast, fending off Spaniards with both blade and insult.

The fight was pointless, and every soul on board knew that, but the pirates couldn’t back down, which meant that the Spanish had to meet them or risk losing in their cockiness.

As the blood of her dead and dying crew lapped at her boots in a shallow crimson tide, Carmilla knew her fight was lost. It was not much longer until she was clapped in irons and led to the hold of one of the Spanish ships, thrown behind bars with what was left of her crew.

She wouldn’t see the sky again for several more days, until she was dragged up and brought ashore. She’d never been in a Spanish port, for obvious reasons, but the similarities to the ports of call she was familiar with outweighed the differences.

“The hangman’s soon ready for you,” one of the Spaniards said with a leer, and Carmilla looked to one side to see nooses already dangling from the gallows, under the sign _Muelle del Verdugo_. Executioner’s Dock.

Carmilla was not a particularly religious woman, but she sent up a quick prayer to whoever might be listening, that the hangman was a good one. She’d seen what happened when an inexperienced hangman sent souls to their graves, and the final dance at the end of a rope was not one she was interested in prolonging. She’d much rather the dignity of a quick death.

The executions were scheduled so soon that the few survivors of _The Aurora_ weren’t even brought to the prisons, just watched by guardsmen and kept in their chains while the final preparations were made and the crowd gathered.

Her death was saved for last, naturally. The biggest show, the main act, not to mention that it was a torture all its own to watch the people who had fought for her die for her.

The noose was slipped over her head and then, nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> Have I been doing my damn best to make this historically accurate? Yes. Is it perfect? No. Don't @ me about it.


End file.
